Tweenache in the Time of Hashtags Read online

  TWEENACHE IN THE TIME

  OF HASHTAGS

  Nina the Philosopher: Book 2

  JUDY BALAN

  (Spoiler)

  Nobody will tell you this but you’re going to lose a lot more than you win.

  (In life, I mean.)

  I say, might as well learn to rock it.

  (Skip to the blog before I blurt out more life truths?)

  CONTENTS

  WWW.NINATHEPHILOSOPHER.COM

  1 MIDDLE SCHOOL MADNESS: DAY 1

  2 THE NEW GIRL

  3 OMEN: PART V

  4 I HEREBY APPROVE OF MY SISTER’S ‘NON-BOYFRIEND’

  5 MY TWELFTH YEAR BEGINS ON A DRAMATIC NOTE

  6 OZZY

  7 GAME ON

  8 THE FACE THAT LAUNCHED A THOUSAND SHIPS

  9 MY LIFE AS A #SITCOM

  10 IN WHICH THERE’S A LOT OF RED AND A BIT OF GREEN

  11 RECAP I: THE CASE OF THE EXPLODING QUICHE

  12 RECAP II: THAT LONG FIGHT

  13 RECAP III: ADAM AND BEN

  14 RECAP IV: SISTER (P)ACT

  15 PRICEY BOYS, PERSISTENT GIRLS

  16 THE INNER BEAR

  17 BACK TO THE PRESENT: A CASE OF THE #MUMFIES

  18 MEANWHILE IN NERD WARS

  19 ANOTHER EPIC GROUP PROJECT

  20 DECEMBER BEGINS WITH A BANG!

  21 TWO NERDS AND A TROUBLEMAKER

  22 SEASON FINALÉ

  23 HOW TO LOSE LIKE A BOSS

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Copyright

  WWW.NINATHEPHILOSOPHER.COM

  Welcome to Nina’s world. This is Nina’s twelfth year, so gear up for some dramatic stories, questions, eye-rolls about being ‘almost a lady’ and, of course, disappointments – huge, heart-wrenching disappointments.

  Also, if you haven’t read last year’s posts, here’s a quick introduction to the characters in Nina’s life.

  Mom: Affectionate but confused lady whose parenting style is a touch – what’s the word? – unorthodox. Loves her daughters (that’s Nina and her sister Nikki) very, very much. Last year, she dated a rapper (oh, she’s a single mom too) and it was a terrible disaster. Not that there is any other kind.

  Nikki: Nina’s elder sister, wannabe goth, likes – no, scratch that – used to like vampires, and says ‘psycho’ a lot. Changes hair colour more frequently than she changes her socks. Last year, Nina and Nikki struck a special bond with each other but that doesn’t mean they are past picking fights with each other over nothing.

  Ashwin Uncle: Mom’s childhood friend, family friend and also Nina’s personal superhero. Nina secretly wishes her mom would just marry him because he makes an awesome parent type. Also, he lets them eat French fries for dinner and such.

  Grandma and Grandpa: Mom’s long-suffering parents who still treat Mom like she’s fifteen (umm, for good reason). Favourite phrase: ‘People will talk.’

  BLG: Short for Bright Light God. Nina’s mom met with a horrible life-threatening accident last year, and you really should read the whole story, but she ended up going into a coma, seeing a bright light and then regaining consciousness. In the process, Nina found a BFF in BLG.

  Akaash (Pronounced ‘Aakash’. Side-effect of having a numerology-loving grandmother.) Nina’s classmate and soul twin. Last year, they ended up blowing up the school pool together (don’t ask).

  This year, Nina discovers hashtagging. You’ve been warned.

  That’s about it. Shall we move on to the blog now? Nina is a little tired of writing about herself in the third person.

  1

  Middle School Madness: Day 1

  Posted by Nina on 6 June 2014 at 4.13 p.m.

  So. I am officially a middle schooler. I’m in Class 7 now! I know, I know, Class 8 is middle school, but my school is cool and alternative like that. So till Class 6, I was in Montessori, but now I have a new, grownup syllabus. Meaning, I get to study real subjects like physics, chemistry and biology instead of some made-up nonsense like ‘nature talk’ and ‘health talk’. Also, I am now in the middle school campus with NO seesaws, jungle gyms and in-house nannies for an assisted lunch experience. I don’t understand why nobody sees what a big deal this is. Everyone’s fussing about the fact that Nikki is now in Class 10. HELLO. I am in a campus with no jungle gyms! This is a huge transition for me. Speaking of transitions, what’s up with everyone asking me how old I am (I’ll be twelve on the fifteenth) and going, ‘Ohhh, just one more year and you’ll be a teenager!’ Like the whole point of twelve is to get to thirteen or something.

  And sometimes they go, ‘Ah, so you’re officially a tween!’ What on earth is a tween? When I asked my aunt Neeti (mom’s cousin), she said, ‘Oh, it’s short for “between”, darling. You’re almost a lady, you see!’ She said it like it was a compliment. That’s what confused me. How can the phrase ‘almost a lady’ mean anything good? Also, going by all the ladies around me, I am not sure I’m in any hurry to get there.

  But never mind Aunt Neeti. She’s a bit wonky. I mean, she says ‘darling’ at the end of all her sentences no matter whom she is talking to, and she pulls people close to kiss them, but only kisses the air. Every time. On BOTH cheeks. What IS that? Mom says it’s a page-three thing. Kissing the air and calling people ‘darling’, that is. She thinks Aunt Neeti is ‘all air, no content’. Aunt Neeti appears on page three of the newspapers all the time and she loves telling everyone about it. And everyone in our extended family keeps talking about how cool Aunt Neeti is because she appears in the papers so frequently. Mom gets really riled up and goes, ‘Pah! Look at everyone fawning over her like she discovered the cure for Ebola or something. How is going to a party and having your picture taken an achievement?’ For once, I do agree with Mom, but I find it hilarious every time she loses it over Aunt Neeti.

  The other day, I told Mom that it might be because deep down she also wants to go to parties and have her picture taken. Big mistake. Mom said, ‘Yeah, thank you, Dr Mental, for your expert analysis,’ and fed me sprouts all day.

  I should have shut up, but I said, ‘Truth hurts,’ and she extended the sprouts regimen by a whole week.

  But I digress. Coming back to my first day of middle school, my new class teacher, Ms Dorothy D’Souza is the opposite of the one I had last year. She’s so nice I feel bad for her. I mean, she actually says things like, ‘I don’t believe in homework and rules and strict discipline because I want you to love learning,’ and ‘I want you to come on time to school because you don’t want to miss out on another exciting day, and not because someone would punish you if you showed up late!’

  You tell me, is this going to work? She’s so naïve and lost, just like the Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Anyway, I’m not complaining after the hell I had last year with Poo-jar Dig-shit. I just don’t want the class to take advantage of her (which they will) and drive her away. She’s like a lovable, golden retriever that has lost its way into our premises, and I really, really want to keep it. She even looks like a golden retriever. No, really. She comes bounding into the classroom with bright-eyed joy. She looks exactly like a golden retriever chasing a ball.

  Speaking of which, I think every person looks like an animal. Everyone. It has nothing to do with how good or bad looking you are. Take Ryan Gosling, for example. Mom loves him. Doesn’t he look like a cocker spaniel? Flappy ears, tongue out, running towards you. Just picture it. I can give you more examples. Miley Cyrus is a lizard, Shah Rukh Khan is a chimp, and Hilary Duff is a pony. Sometimes, when I look at a person, the first image that pops into my head is their animal equivalent. It’s so funny sometimes that I have to contr
ol the urge to break into a laughing fit. Mom told me I’m not supposed to think like that because it’s rude. This is another thing I don’t get. How can you just tell someone not to ‘think like that’? It’s not a choice. It’s just the way your brain works. It’s as useless as saying, ‘Don’t be sad.’

  Okay, I’ll continue tonight. Nikki’s singing very loudly with her headphones on, and I can’t concentrate.

  MOMster INC.

  Posted by Nina on 6 June 2014 at 8.58 p.m.

  Remember last year when Mom was dating that rapper, fighting with Nikki, planning an impromptu wedding and acting like a total teenager? Yeah, that seems like such a long time ago. I remember complaining constantly about how I just wanted a NORMAL family. Now, BLG is clearly amusing himself by giving me exactly what I wanted – a NORMAL mother. And oh my god, it is NOT fun by any stretch of the imagination. You see, my mom is in some kind of atoning phase. Yeah, she feels like she made a string of mistakes last year and was not a ‘good mom’, so she’s trying to make up for it in extremely weird ways. For starters, she has quit her advertising job and is now working from home. She’s pursuing all sorts of new hobbies and exploring new lines of work. It started out with normal stuff like content writing, but then she found that she needed something that her ‘soul loves’, so she tried candle making. Yes, she went to a class and everything. But then, she was really bad at it. She kept mixing all the wrong scents in the name of fusion, and it was just awful. We didn’t want to discourage her initially, so we kept complimenting her even when she made candles that made us gag. Nikki and I couldn’t remember their names, so we had our own secret names: sour curd, rotten banana, smelly sock and so on. But then, she went ahead and made one that was so bad that we called it armpit. That was it. We told her. And it crushed her, just like we expected.

  But I don’t get it even now. How could she not know it? She said, ‘It’s difficult to be objective about art, especially when you are the artist.’

  I said, ‘But Mom, that might be true if you’ve drawn a picture and can’t tell if it’s really beautiful. But this is a SMELL. How can your NOSE not be objective?’

  To which she said, ‘Same reason people have a problem with other people’s farts, but will not hold their noses for their own farts. Because the nose automatically forgives a bad smell if it emanates from the person it’s attached to.’

  I thought that was quite clever. For Mom, I mean.

  But back to Mom’s loola career choices. She tried crocheting (again, did NOT go well), baking (don’t ask) and pottery, before realizing she really wasn’t good with her hands. Nikki and I were hoping she’d go back to work because we’re just not used to having her around at home ALL THE TIME, you know? Hovering when we browse the web, obsessing over our nutrition, enforcing new laws on oral hygiene (I KNOW, right?), asking us about homework and – wait for it – including a new word to her vocabulary: ‘BEDTIME’. Yes! We’re both expected to get to bed by 9.00 p.m. on weekdays and 10.30 p.m. on weekends. Nikki tried to play the Class 10 board exams card, but Mom told her she should be working that much harder during the day to make up for lost study time at night. Why can’t you guys just close the door and stay awake, you ask? Well, the Wi-Fi router is in Mom’s room and she turns it off by ‘bedtime’. And, not to be a drama queen or anything, but I refuse to stay awake in a world without Wi-Fi.

  I completely forgot to tell you about all my other teachers and the new kids in class. Will blog tomorrow. I’m two minutes away from ‘bedtime’.

  2

  The New Girl

  Posted by Nina on 10 June 2014 at 3.33 p.m.

  So. There are two new girls in class this year – Shreya and Anna. Shreya is okay, but not someone I’d want to be friends with. For starters, she looks like a princess. An ACTUAL princess. Like she bathes in milk every day and has ten servants to curl her hair to perfection and get her ready for school. As expected, Shreya already has a fan following. Plus, she lives on Wallace Garden Road. I’m only going to say this: I don’t know how to talk to people who live on that road. Most of the kids in my class think it’s the coolest thing, but I just don’t get it. How can an address make a person cool? I don’t know about you, but I don’t like my coolness being attributed to something OUTSIDE of me.

  But enough about Shreya. Anna is the one I need to keep an eye on. I would be her friend, except she seems like a bit of an annoying know-it-all. I know, I know, it’s only been a few days, and I shouldn’t draw conclusions so quickly. It’s just that I’m too used to being the annoying know-it-all in the classroom, and I just don’t like the idea of sharing that space with someone else. See, I don’t care if someone is prettier than I am, more popular than I am or even smarter than I am. I just ask that I be the sassiest kid in Class 7. Everything else is up for grabs, so leave sass alone. #SassIsMine. This forms the basis of all my relationships. It’s an unspoken rule which determines whether or not a friendship is likely to last. And from the looks of it, I’m guessing Anna and I are NOT going to be friends.

  Reasons to hate Anna:

  She might be as smart as I am (or smarter, but I don’t want to think about this possibility now).

  Her family recently moved from the US of A. This means that she says the same things I say, but with a posh accent, so everyone assumes she’s cooler.

  She looks like DORA THE EXPLORER!

  She has a way of addressing the teachers with an extra topping of politeness, which makes them all warm and gooey inside. Arrrgghhh.

  She quotes Shakespeare randomly. Enough said.

  She looks like DORA THE EXPLORER!

  Ms Dorothy D’Souza can’t decide whom she loves more, Anna or yours truly. But I think she’s leaning towards Little Miss American Pie.

  She’s a squash champion, which means everyone’s going to fawn over her, because a girl who plays a sport is somehow considered cooler than a girl who can draw and paint.

  She looks like DORA THE EXPLORER!

  She is extremely NICE to me (which makes it very difficult to HATE her).

  She lives on Wallace Garden Road.

  Anna is eyeing the student exchange programme in London as much as I am.

  Allow me to explain. Yesterday, Ms D’Souza told us that there is a special exchange programme for ONE student from every batch at this fancy London school next January. We will be evaluated on:

  a) General performance (which is what teachers say when they mean good grades).

  b) Enthusiasm in class (every teacher will give feedback on his or her classes, so MUST find a way to make all the teachers LOVE me).

  c) Extracurricular activities (must show more interest in sports and not argue that since my brain is getting SO much exercise from thinking, my body can relax).

  d) Taking initiative like starting a club for a good cause (must try to care about the environment and all that).

  e) Good manners (must control the urge to correct teachers when they are wrong).

  f) And finally, attendance (must aim for hundred per cent attendance).

  Just in case it’s not clear enough already: I REALLY WANT TO WIN THIS EXCHANGE PROGRAMME! It might be my only chance to visit another country before I grow up and make my own money. I mean, my mom has happily quit her job and is struggling to pay the rent and my dad is Mr Nonexistent, so this is my ONLY chance. If this had happened last year, I could have slept through class and still won this. But it’s going to take some strategic thinking to beat Anna.

  Bright Light God, I need your help.

  Nikki Has a Boyfriend!

  Posted by Nina on 10 June 2014 at 7.46 p.m.

  I know what you’re asking and the answer is yes! I’M SURE! She’s been acting all secretive over the summer and I was a little anxious that she might go back to being a voodoo high priestess or, you know, clam up and get angsty as usual, but gosh, I’m so relieved! My sister is acting like a normal sixteen-year-old. Over the summer, Nikki started mysteriously disappearing in the afternoons, and Mom innocentl
y believed she was at her friend Sonya’s place. I didn’t want to make Mom freak out unnecessarily, so I did my own investigation. Today, I carried my spy gear to school and followed Nikki with my binoculars after school (don’t try this at home). Guess what? There’s no Sonya. There’s only Dhruv. Dhruv is that slightly off-centre senior that everyone’s always making up stories about. I’ve heard all kinds of stories about him: 1) His mom is mental. 2) His dad went to jail. 3) He plays the guitar by himself during lunch break and doesn’t talk to anyone. I don’t know about the first two rumours, but I do know the last one is true. Dhruv doesn’t talk to anyone and he has that brooding look permanently plastered on his face. Ooh, wait. Now I get it. Maybe Nikki thinks he’s a vampire. Anyway, kids can be cruel. They’re probably making stuff up about him because he isn’t like the other kids, i.e., he doesn’t go to all the parties and hang out with the girls who live on Wallace Garden Road. I will keep you guys updated on Nikki’s love life, but first, I must get some snooping done.

  3

  Omen: Part V

  Posted by Nina on 11 June 2014 at 4.20 p.m.

  As you guys know, I am on a mission to make all the teachers love me. So in my enthusiasm, I might have ended up annoying our new biology teacher, Ms Sheila Oomen. Let me start from the beginning. Ms Oomen is nice enough; she’s one of the few teachers that students actually like. Even Nikki has told me a lot of good things about her. But she doesn’t ooze sugary sweetness from every pore of her being like Ms D’Souza. She’s the kind of teacher who’s basically pleasant. Unless you manage to annoy her in some way and then you’ve had it. Because then she’ll start EXPECTING you to be annoying. Also, she manages to look sharp (you know, perfectly put together: starchy cotton saree, statement jewellery, neat bun) despite all her features pointing to her being a witch: tall, bony structure, really sharp nose that bends around the tip. Plus, her last name is Oomen, so everyone calls her Omen. Anyway, in my eagerness to please, I read the chapters she hadn’t begun in class, looked up stuff online, came to class and answered every question. Only problem was, she hadn’t actually asked the questions. I was asking them and providing the answers myself. Some people might call that being proactive, but whatever. Omen was not pleased.